EWTN to air live Town Hall meeting on the report on clerical sexual abuse in the U.S.

, Feb 20, 2004 / 12:00 am (CNA).- The EWTN Global Catholic Network will air a live Town Hall Meeting on the report by the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Youth on the date of its release, Feb. 27 at 8 p.m. It will be broadcast on television, radio and the Internet from the Caldwell Hall Auditorium at The Catholic University of America.

Raymond Arroyo, EWTN news director, will host and moderate the Town Hall. The National Review Board is scheduled to release the last of three reports on clergy sexual abuse in the U.S. Catholic Church. The report is expected to contain the findings of a survey by criminologists, detailing all known allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests in the past 50 years. It will also include a preliminary analysis of the causes and context of the abuse, based on interviews the review board conducted with bishops, victims and offenders.

Members of the review board, Catholic scholars and writers, and members of the clergy will discuss the report and its implications. Panelists include national review board members Robert Bennett, Anne Burke and William Burleigh; editors Kate O’Beirne and the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus; scholar George Weigel. It will also include members of the clergy, including Bishop John D’Arcy of Ft. Wayne-South Bend, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee and Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis. The 90-minute program will include questions from a studio audience as well as from a worldwide viewing audience. Encore times for the show are: Feb. 28, 1 a.m., Feb. 29, 4:30 p.m., March 1, 10 a.m. and 11 p.m.